Blockchain Papers

Yaning Zhang, Wei Shao, Mai Nguyen, Kun Zhang · 5 authors

ABSTRACT Destinations are increasingly adopting Non‐Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as innovative tools for brand communication and visitor engagement in digital tourism contexts. Drawing on Construal Level Theory (CLT), we examine how the anthropomorphic (ANT) design of NFT characters influences tourists' impulsive travel intentions and whether customization strengthens this effect. In two online experiments, we tested a sequential mediation model linking ANT to impulsive travel intention through psychological distance (PD) and perceived playfulness. The results show that highly anthropomorphic NFT characters increase psychological proximity, which subsequently increases impulsive travel intentions. Moreover, customization significantly strengthens this indirect effect. This study extends research on digital destination marketing while offering practical guidance for designing effective NFT‐based tourism strategies.

Priya Sharma, Versha Sharma, Ravinesh Mishra, Bhartendu Sharma · 5 authors

Medical tourism has emerged as a significant global phenomenon, driven by the convergence of high healthcare costs in developed nations and the availability of high-quality, affordable treatment options abroad. This review examines the critical role of entrepreneurial innovation in shaping and expanding this industry, which uniquely blends advanced health care with the principles of hospitality and tourism. Key innovations transforming the sector include the development of integrated, all-inclusive service models that package medical procedures with travel, luxury accommodation, and wellness-focused recovery programs. Digital disruption is paramount, with platforms leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for personalized patient care coordination and blockchain technology to ensure secure, transparent transfer of medical records and billing, thereby building essential trust. Furthermore, strategic partnerships between hospitals, airlines, and hospitality providers create a seamless end-to-end experience for international patients. The proliferation of telemedicine supports this model by facilitating vital pre-departure consultations and post-operative follow-up care, ensuring continuity and safety. Entrepreneurs are also successfully targeting niche markets, from elective cosmetic surgery to complex dental and regenerative procedures, particularly in established hubs like India, Thailand, and Turkey. However, the industry’s growth is not without challenges, including regulatory heterogeneity, cultural and language barriers, and ethical concerns. Future advancement depends on navigating these complexities while capitalizing on opportunities such as value-based care, augmented reality (AR) for patient engagement, and strengthened international accreditation frameworks. By combining clinical expertise and hospitality, innovative entrepreneurship is ultimately reinventing access to health care globally, giving patients new options while producing substantial economic advantages for the countries of destination.

Keyi Guo, Ling Jin, Meng Yu

Digital technology has reshaped the concept of ownership in the digital realm. This study explores non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as innovative offerings from heritage sites, focusing on how psychological ownership of these digital assets influences tourists’ real-world behaviors. Four scenario-based experiments across different cultural heritage contexts demonstrate that psychological ownership of tourism NFTs (high-level vs. low-level) influences tourists’ visit intention and stewardship behavioral intentions. The mechanism involves the transfer of psychological ownership from tourism NFTs (the proximal target) to the original cultural heritage (the distal target), which subsequently leads to increased cultural heritage attachment. Furthermore, these effects are attenuated for individuals with a low construal level. These findings advance current knowledge on psychological ownership and NFT implementations in heritage tourism while providing practical guidance for heritage organizations to leverage NFTs.

Yichen Zhao, Shan Li, Xinjian Liang, Jiaolong Xue

No abstract is available for this record.

Yuchen Zhao, Yihong Zhan, Ting Long

Purpose Many tourism organizations are exploring non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for destination branding amid the metaverse and transformative technologies. However, limited literature explores the specific influence mechanisms of NFTs on tourism marketing, particularly about the development of destination brand love from a consumer perspective. Design/methodology/approach This research introduces a conceptual model integrating four gratifications (informativeness, entertainment, interpersonal utility and incentives), attitude towards NFTs, cultural contact, destination image and destination brand love. The model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with data collected from 383 Chinese NFT users, taking Dunhuang, China, as the research context. Findings The study finds that the four gratifications positively influence consumers’ attitude towards NFTs. Moreover, a positive attitude towards NFTs enhances both the destination image and cultural contact, which, in turn, fosters the development of destination brand love. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature on NFT marketing and destination branding by offering empirical evidence of how NFTs can be leveraged to strengthen emotional ties between consumers and destinations. The findings provide practical insights for tourism marketers seeking to use NFTs to build sustainable relationships with tourists.

Raffaella Folgieri, Sergej Gričar, Tea Baldigara

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are an emerging application of blockchain technology, with the potential to transform various industries, including tourism. Despite conceptual discussions that have highlighted opportunities and challenges associated with using NFTs—such as in digital souvenirs, ticketing systems, loyalty programmes, and conservation initiatives—there is a critical gap in the literature consisting of the lack of a structured methodological framework to empirically evaluate the impact of real-world NFT implementations. This study addresses this gap by proposing a conceptual model and methodological framework designed to assess NFT projects in the tourism sector. The framework integrates diverse data collection methods, advanced analytical techniques (including econometric analysis, natural language processing, and machine learning), and a technological workbench for tracking key performance indicators (KPIs). To demonstrate its applicability, the framework is applied to the Dalmatia NFT project, an exploratory application in cultural tourism. The considered example highlights the potential of NFTs to enhance tourism experiences while addressing challenges such as scalability, sustainability, and user engagement. This study concludes with insights into the framework’s practical implications for stakeholders and outlines future research directions for empirical validation. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, this study aims to provide a robust foundation for effectively integrating NFTs into the tourism industry.

Camille Bégin

We landed in Chiang Mai. Nick stood up from his Thai-Airways signature-purple-clad seat, turned his cell phone back on, and announced: “Weird, my phone gives ‘smoke’ as the weather here.” It took ten years to decant, but I now know this comment was a fork in the road, the first crumb leading me, whether I wanted it or not, down a new, meandering trail in the woods. No gingerbread house at the end. The trail is the destination. A trail of enjoyable, forgettable, and unpleasant tastes. A trail of illness.The weather app should have been our first clue that something was awry. As soon as we stepped off the plane, the smell of burning wood engulfed us. It was March 2015, before North Americans became all too familiar with the hazy skies and sullied air caused by massive forest fires (fig. 1). It was late so we went straight to the hotel.My parents met us at breakfast the morning after our arrival. They had flown in separately from Paris and arrived in the middle of the night. Nick and I flew from Toronto first to Singapore and then to Chiang Mai via Bangkok. He was attending a neuropsychiatry conference in Singapore in early March, and I was to return there to participate in a food studies symposium at the end of the month. The timing (and funding) justified a month-long trip, and we decided to visit Thailand between our Singapore events to celebrate our March 15 and 17 birthdays. My parents wanted some warmth in the middle of winter. Nick and I had traveled well with them before and knew their being with us would cover some of our costs. We decided to meet up with them for a couple of weeks. They had had a great time in Vietnam a year earlier, so we picked Thailand as our meeting point since none of us had been there. I would be spending my thirty-first birthday with them, the first time in ten years I could celebrate with my family. And the food was bound to be good.By the time we landed in Chiang Mai, Nick and I had already spent a week on the western Thai island of Koh Mak, chosen as not to be overrun by tourists, which was foolish as we soon learned it was “Thai break” in Germany. Koh Mak had fewer tourist sights than other close-by islands but it made up for it by still having a bustling farming sector. We drove our rented moped through pineapple and Hevea plantations, the latter tapped to gather natural rubber. But the beach had to be raked every morning to remove plastic garbage delivered by the waves. The Pad Thais and curries we recognized from restaurants and takeout in various Western cities we had lived in. The main unexpected culinary element was the cooks’ tendency not to add eggs directly to the Pad Thais but to wrap the noodles inside an omelet instead. I was not yet aware that this dish was a fairly new culinary “invention,” brought forth for nationalistic purposes after the country gained its independence (Greeley 2009; Van Esterik 2000). I thus categorized our island Pad Thais as, “wow, real Thai food.” Another Koh Mak culinary highlight was a pizza prepared by American expats, eaten as we sat in the sand awaiting a ferry ride to a close-by secluded beach. In terms of sensory souvenirs, this pizza beat those Nick and I would eat a few years later in Napoli during our honeymoon. We had one other exceptional Thai meal featuring an appetizer in which the sweetness of palm sugar and the salty sourness of fish sauce mixed with herbaceous notes brought forth by the unknown leaves in which I wrapped my shrimps to form a morsel of flavor I had never experienced. I had finally put my tongue on an “authentic” experience—and here come the scare quotes.I should have known better. By 2015, I had graduated with a doctorate in food history and was well versed in the food studies literature. I knew that the search for “authentic” food, especially the food of populations living in areas occupied by colonial Empires for centuries, is loaded with power relationships, exoticisation, and neocolonial desires to “eat the Other” (Heldke 2008; hooks 1992). My own dissertation (and soon-to-be book) was the story of a doomed search for tradition, albeit in a US context (Bégin 2016). And yet, I continued to roam Thai markets and food stalls to find “the real deal.” The curse of the privileged Western foodie. * * *When we arrived at the hotel’s breakfast courtyard, I was surprised my father was not happier to see me. Jet lag, probably. He went to pick up the rental car as we were to depart for a road trip the day after. We planned to drive to the “golden triangle” at the border of Thailand, Laos, and China, to enjoy famously stunning views of terraced rice paddies and absorb the local culture, cuisine included. We leisurely finished our meal, chatting with my mother, and after a while we wondered why my father was taking so long to return. New city, many rickshaws.It was Nick’s birthday. We visited Chiang Mai’s inner-city temples, where my father snapped a photo of Nick and I banging a gong to ring in Nick’s new year. We bought our dinner at the famed night market where street food stalls offered grilled octopus skewers here, a glass noodle salad there, a Pad Thai a bit further down the crowded road. The skills of the vendors grinding the ingredients for mango salad in their large wooden mortar and pestle fascinated me. I breathed in the pungent smell before tasting the best rendition of the dish I’d ever eaten. We had no time to take any of the cooking classes offered in Chiang Mai, but I think my mother and I would have done so during our planned few days back there after our northern trip. We’ll never know if we would have been able to see beyond the staged, playful authenticity the instructors put on for tourists and that anthropologists love to analyze in their articles (a safe way for them to “eat the Other” under the guise of “doing research”?) (Mills 2019; Walter 2017). By the time we drove back to Chiang Mai, we would no longer be looking for genuine food experiences or novelty—we would be searching for sustenance. * * *Before we left, my parents and I poured over the printouts of our hotel reservation confirmations. It would have been useful to have a map larger than a phone screen.“Papa, why did you use Expedia to plan this trip? You never use Expedia. I don’t get our itinerary, it’s all over the place. The dates seem all mixed up.”“It was useful to keep everything in one place.”“Camille, he won’t let me double check it,” my mother chimed in. “He changed everything two days ago.”“You girls don’t understand the logic. I got it all figured out. Trust me.”“OK, but why does it say you cancelled the reservation in this nice-looking hotel to book us in this subpar one? Why did you change it?” I kept asking questions—none of the bookings made sense to me.“Trust me.”We did not yet know that we were right to question him. * * *Off we went in the rental car, driver on the left in Thailand. My father, who had planned all trips for the past twenty-five years, was the only one who knew where we were going. The roads were in good shape. My father, not always an easy man but usually relaxed and self-assured when traveling, alternated between jolly and his moodiest of moods. One moment he showed his happiness at seeing Nick and I in love, and the next he barked at me for not getting into the car fast enough. We were unsure what to make of his strange behavior.The world-renowned views of Northern Thailand? Nowhere to be seen. Smoke, fog, more smoke. Everywhere. We stopped at viewpoints to look at smoke. Instead of the melodious green camaieu we expected, the landscape was a cacophony of grays and browns—a wall of muffled sounds and heavy smoke. Not a single ray of sunshine made it through. The smell retreated at times, and we were still unsure whether this was fog or smoke, but the higher we got, the more the earthy scent of burning trees reached us. We all hoped for better conditions on the way back down to Chiang Mai. No other tourists were in sight.The hotels? The worst. We arrived at our first hotel at night. It was dark but we could make out several wooden bungalows organized around an empty pool. Either we were the only guests or everyone else was already asleep. The manager (or maybe the owner?) showed the four of us to one bungalow with two sleeping areas separated by a too-short pink curtain. The bungalow was made of dark teak wood. Once inside, I was reminded of an alpine cabin. The decoration was sparse: two pink accent pillows, wooden bedside tables with reading lamps. In my memory the only sources of light were the dim circles under and over the lampshades. We were tired from the drive but had enough in us to demand separate bungalows for the price my father had prepaid. The manager reluctantly showed Nick and me to a similar bungalow, though with orange accents rather than pink. * * *We were settling down for the night when I heard the scream from my parents’ bungalow. It was my mother. I had never heard such a guttural from I got and a at me when I if we could off the in but this is not this is not is not It out of He he a is not I don’t know had them as a and an their with my mother while my father out for a bit before back to I would to with a But I had never being so of him. I had never their bungalow, and my father at me to get out. He me the had brought on a and his in his I with my mother to went back and we all back to * * next day was my thirty-first birthday. I an but at some in the I got My parents had finished breakfast when we arrived at the the their way through the smoke. my father was there, My mother was in The man who had us the night before as and us eggs and of in the as the eggs rather than was a with with none of the of a street food He none of the and we had come to My father everything was that he had his breakfast and that was with the hotel with guests and a of leaves and the with a could be a pool. My father had for two We were went for a ride on the visited a and went some the of the on which my parents were and the on leaves and into the middle of the I wondered if this was a to up the for A and safe But seeing my parents in this a me their their years after this was the first time I was an I was and I did not yet know this would be my main of the my parents would not be here and should not be for and could off an we the road from the and the local of own eggs in a that of we to from wooden with a few other tourists were there but was not an we wondered we had landed there. My father had into the my mother and I had ever was his a was not we for a to the a I had not went through the It was with the of well for my search for a Thai culinary We a fish in a The us of its and at us when we it would be with no for our Western But the was so we could eat We had been had by our desires for genuine local I in of my birthday My father through his * * day up we local to us through the They were surprised any tourists their the air but and took us on a through and the In the my father their and from the with as (fig. on In the wood with from the The with their us no They had of did my father to he to the conditions under which We breathed in the could the it were the of the landscape for their on his but their on the (or on his memory was he surprised to see in what had been to us as a of I think it was the He our road trip in and I have his my new every time I have had to my The in the me to our through the down to the of the we went the and of our through the I I could this trip too when I it to be by the fires us on the the of and us. that it was and as if was to have a of tourists enough to visit at this time of the year. The to and for this but in and this was should have been turned into a * * *When I to my to that of years later as I with the of my father, I to it I this trip. I the first in this did not to and but to the and I to remove from the I down at my and the I a moment to this taking the after a still in my and on the day we up in the of the on our I on my and on to when my back to It when I so the is My but I in a As if the in for years if I get I to them, this I not the and cover with the we use to in of I my back I should into the smoke. I no longer have to a but as Nick is now on the of I use his The back a of articles on the in Thailand. As I after and for the context of the Thai of my trail of and * * the to use the I while is an and way of the for especially in such as Northern Thailand. areas a that the the areas then as for a couple of years before being left for to ten years so the forest and the its other year or a new is a in which 2016). in the the or to with at this in of the farming of such as for higher from at populations into the “Thai and and them from farming and the from and the Thai farming local to their and made them and large a for to new areas for The of in such as Chiang Mai the and local have on the of the in the late and early The main been a by and so so to who the of forest fires in Northern Thailand, turned into form of and the from to and As would be expected, this on over a year in Northern Thailand. the country as burning in other as well and the Bangkok. In the caused I put it I see what we could not by our for the of one man we for We had into a and on the and of the food we so wanted to In our as culinary tourists, we had tourists of the * * put on a for our meal, as have done for of of tourists since the of Northern Thailand in the They our in in of us and It was a down to the of the We were to the their into and you make to as but never use years still in my The meal was good enough. and at the it took to The and the made of food the the it so we would have a food to back on if put off by their (and more it a local food there as I my and the meal as as I could my He was but on his the for us to of in the middle of the My father the A man in his late he took his off and finished the in his and The of the a through a and a into a the end of the the had us visit his and showed me to use an to down a from a * * our we continued further and up and in still in heavy smoke. My mother and I local that would in our Paris and Toronto for years the of the back too many next hotel was a over those of the It was the and the food changed a my parents and I what the was with I a not to make a and to eat was in the to search for a My father a He never at but he would it in to the local it me as out of the was for or a for he usually a local But he did not to and was a Nick had a He wanted more than one on this trip with his morning my mother, and I up early and went to the local market and long of with at a as by the it was right I still long for the I know never My father us he to in after our I think he wanted to from to everything was breakfast at the we my father was not He had been to the of to to the on his a that should have been My mother now that he had had a time the and in Thai during their in Bangkok. He was a to the in yet had to for with that were too with his was to a a enough for who had graduated from and in He my father have had a on the over from Paris and us the had to be especially as my parents and I had a to return to a few days The was that the air on the could a more Nick this was out of the my and his being and had not and my father had to take to his a familiar and would back to We Nick to with my father while he was having his hotel to get to his and something was and that he to be by a Nick did my mother retreated to and I off my breakfast with the now I had down the day No to let it my father to the road trip and drive back to Chiang Mai to get at a local with the story of his was so we he have had a I to keep the in My mother was not up for dark Nick drove us down the road back to the My father to so he The of us were and * * *We drove straight to the Chiang Mai where an of us. a few of my father was in an and to the The was for one to with the The was up for with a as an and a with a My mother Nick and I left to check in at the new this one chosen by my mother and We had a on the looking over the of attending the night market under the I my and over my Nick was what to say or especially as his trip was to an end. As he for the before I had planned to with my parents before back to and then to * * the I took the back to the beyond the and its that form a around the I would come to know the way well over the next few a few of my a in to us that the was to see us. A we had us to down in his and for his at You see is get here or but you back to the was the to with to to find the right in my to Nick to reached Nick during his this is what I was this was on but I did not to you and out. The made me think He with a of the between sugar and the of a on all being to Paris so he get at could on the if you it But only so many areas since it’s in the with the during the you the of the down the down a It the of the that all and then me that he first to the he had not me not who my but I for They never see their father a few more days in Chiang Mai, time for the in my to so the could a to brought in a food for to his in a the of No The first meal was too was my father so he up and let my mother and I for him. We noodles and mango We the from the food stalls the too to any longer culinary The local food our but could not our and We for a familiar * * the in his my and his but he still us of the in the We were we to in the for this of or more a My father alternated between of his and being the I had ever and would ever see Thai did not know where to put the on his was than their He an The a wooden tongue to to it into his became his main when not It but it took me years to understand that the was the of his a I at a local took me in the to me my was and to return as soon as was for me, and as he did not this with my father or my mother. I now know that the of the and my any in the looking at his knew well before the that the was a in the of in their early with an is what and As well as, for my of the in what a But it safe and not have And you a in to on a that the is think Nick knew as He me understand that the heavy the of my which the caused by his and in in too for any of us to * * an to back to Paris with us. A with We was and out of the to and took right over from the Thai traveled with a for and a a and in during the trip. us would to a few a and a bit of before to get us early for the back to Paris via Bangkok. The of us in my that of the Chiang of the trip as a for the longer one to My father made it through the first of and and after through the while he he could we the My father and the traveled first my mother and I in as I was not on the and thus not by the I went to check on my father He made me when he that he had up the by he was being for a of the was for us at the to straight to the at the we my in his new a smell as if he had from a trip. No or My mother and I were to return during the street food

Partho Pratim Seal, Nagendra Yadav, Rupam Konar

Digital technology has transformed various sectors with aviation not being exceptional. Digiyatra a government-promoted app enhances the traveller's experience by streamlining the operation. A blockchain-based identity management system Digiyatra uses a digital identity system which stores travelers' information on a distributed ledger. The airports and the airlines adopt the system to enhance the security of travellers, reduce the waiting queues in airports, and provide seamless travel and great experience. The chapter explores the revolutionary role of Digiyatra in air travel in India. The study uses online reviews of travellers about their experience using the app. The findings of the study state that security, experience, efficiency, and digitization are key factors for adopting digiyatra. The study's results will assist the government in understanding adopting digital technologies which can redefine the Indian aviation industry and make it future-ready

Yannick Eckhardt, Johannes Glückler

In this paper, we analyze the global controversy surrounding the innovation of cryptocurrencies, developing an analytical framework to assess the empirical structure of arguments. By unpacking an argumentation analysis of a comprehensive set of scholarly, media, and industry publications, we identify six key dimensions of disagreement, comprising 42 distinct arguments. These dimensions include the raison d’être, environmental impact, social inclusion, susceptibility to illegal activities, economic impact, and potential for decentralization and democratization. Our findings reveal entrenched positions supported by robust scholarly research and empirical evidence. Cryptocurrencies represent a controversial innovation, for which global resolution remains elusive. While the controversy may appear unbounded, we plead for a geographical approach, emphasizing that localized institutional contexts are crucial for exploring potential trajectories of the controversy. Finally, our analysis illustrates the potential of argumentation analysis to properly disentangle complex societal disagreements, and it therefore promises to enrich the methodological pluralism in economic geography.

Sergej Gričar, Violeta Šugar, Tea Baldigara, Raffaella Folgieri

With the emergence of the metaverse, countries’ digital efforts to create tourism opportunities have given rise to the possibility of capitalising on digital content which, along with physical tourism experiences, can generate further income and enhance a country’s reputation. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a unique application of blockchain technology, offer an enabling technology in several sectors, including tourism. Therefore, this study aims to explore the official tourism websites of Croatia and Slovenia and analyse current NFT applications in tourism economics. The methodology focuses explicitly on sentiment analysis, blockchain and machine learning. The paper introduces various applications currently in place, including Slovenia’s “I Feel Nft” project. The research shows that the main benefits of using NFT and sentiment analysis in the tourism economy are the promotion and presentation of major tourist destinations, exhibitions, works of art, and companies’ products in tokens, digital content and souvenirs. The adoption of sentiment analysis and NFTs in the tourism economy is still open to proposals for implementing public quantitative data metrics. Therefore, the scientific contribution of this research is essential in terms of operational recommendations and defining metrics for measuring the effectiveness of those methodologies and their applications in the tourism economy. On top of that, the practical contribution lies in monitoring the influx of tourists, and highlighting their increase over time and the significance of new technology in time series tourism research.

Seda Karagöz Zeren

Decentralized tourism financial systems are revolutionizing the way people pay for their travels. They enable travelers to make secure, fast, and borderless payments without intermediaries, saving time and money. Decentralized tourism financial systems use blockchain technology to eliminate the need for intermediaries, such as banks and credit card companies. This allows users to make payments directly between themselves, without the need for a trusted third party. In this research, a framework of the decentralized tourism financial payment system is presented as a proposal. Academic publications on what decentralized payment systems are and the use of these payment systems in tourism were examined, and a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol proposal was presented between a customer and hotel management using the infrastructure that creates DeFi. With the presentation of this proposal, an application of decentralized financial payment systems can be realized in future studies in tourism.

Katsy J. Lin, Huiyue Ye, Rob Law

No abstract is available for this record.

Wangming Hu, Hyunsuk Han, Gulong Wang, Tao Peng · 5 authors

A museum is the destination of the crystallization of history and culture, and a museum is the center for the development of heritage culture. The display and exhibition of historical relics can promote the harmonious development of society. However, there are many defects in traditional museums. The collection in the museum is scattered. The exhibition needs a specific time and place to open, and the exhibition mode is boring and lacks entertainment, which seriously limits the museum’s dissemination of history and culture. In order to improve the public’s number of visits, museums need to keep pace with the times. Using augmented reality technology can digitize the information in the museum and integrate it with the user’s real environment, which solves the limitation of time and space for most users to visit the museum, and greatly increases the entertainment of users to visit the museum. In addition, the application of blockchain technology in digital museums can effectively ensure the security of museum cultural relics data and quickly restore the lost cultural relics information. The digital museum can help tourists realize cross-region viewing. Through multimedia software and hardware, it can greatly stimulate tourists’ interest and attract tourists of different ages to visit. This article uses digital technology to present physical museums in a digital form on the network, but it is difficult for digital museums to conduct targeted analysis on tourists of different ages. This article will analyze the attraction ability of digital museums to tourists of different ages, thereby attracting tourists of different ages to visit. This paper compared traditional museums with digital museums based on augmented reality technology and blockchain technology. The experimental results showed that from the perspective of young people, the average interactivity of traditional museums and digital museums was 47.20% and 78.20%, respectively; from the perspective of the elderly, the average interactivity of traditional museums and digital museums was 59.04% and 70.36%, respectively. Therefore, the digital museum built by using augmented reality technology and blockchain technology can effectively improve the interaction with users. The digital museum can improve the interaction with tourists of different ages, attract a large number of tourists for virtual visits, and improve the cultural transmission and economic development of the digital museum.

Vikram Puri, Subhra R. Mondal, Subhankar Das, Vasiliki Vrana

Blockchain and immersive technology are the pioneers in bringing digitalization to tourism, and researchers worldwide are exploring many facets of these techniques. This paper analyzes the various aspects of blockchain technology and its potential use in tourism. We explore high-frequency keywords, perform network analysis of relevant publications to analyze patterns, and introduce machine learning techniques to facilitate systematic reviews. We focused on 94 publications from Web Science that dealt with blockchain implementation in tourism from 2017 to 2022. We used Vosviewer for network analysis and artificial intelligence models with the help of machine learning tools to predict the relevance of the work. Many reviewed articles mainly deal with blockchain in tourism and related terms such as smart tourism and crypto tourism. This study is the first attempt to use text analysis to improve the topic modeling of blockchain in tourism. It comprehensively analyzes the technology’s potential use in the hospitality, accommodation, and booking industry. In this context, the paper provides significant value to researchers by giving an insight into the trends and keyword patterns. Tourism still has many unexplored areas; journal articles should also feature special studies on this topic.

Nitin Liladhar Rane, Saurabh Choudhary, Jayesh Rane

No abstract is available for this record.

Mohammod Abul Kashem, Mohammad Shamsuddoha, Tasnuba Nasir, Asma Akter Chowdhury

Purpose This paper reviews the role of two significant smart technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology (BT) in achieving sustainable tourism success. Such changes will maintain consistent tourism growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region by improving environmental, social and economic sustainability. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a qualitative approach focusing on AI and blockchain-based adaptations towards sustainability in technology-driven platforms, particularly in the tourism sector. However, this study is conceptualized with Day's (1989) IMRAD (introduction, methods, results and discussion) framework and Hall's (2012) suggestions. This reinforced the structure of this article by the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) concept. In addition, the entire study proceeds by way of accentuating the research question. Findings The potential of these technologies (AI and blockchain) can internalize a win-win situation for economic prosperity and sustainable conservation of environmental resources. Even though, apathy among potential tourists (of traditional mass tourism) can be revived under sustainable tourism in the region through smart technology. Replacing traditional practices and policies with innovative technologies can reduce the adverse effect on environmental and cultural resources. Originality/value This research justifies the potential for AI and blockchain to balance economy-oriented tourism and sustainability-prone technologically advanced tourism as a caustic issue for the MENA region. Indeed, this study has revitalized and transformed the less eventful margins of leading cultural-heritage-based tourism into sustainable profitability with concerns over diversity, socio-economic conditions, economic recession and burgeoning geopolitical instability.

Yixiao Peng, Wenyi Huang

Forest protection is crucial to ensuring the balance between human beings and ecology. This study explores the key role played by communities that originally lived in forest-protected areas in implementing the traditional management of forests. The unified management mode previously used by the state power can no longer meet the demands of modern times; hence, multiple types of management systems should be implemented to enable adaption to the original ecology of forest areas. A multimodal management mode should be adopted to restore the original ecology of forest areas. The adoption of this management system can restore a forest to its original state (i.e., the state that existed prior to the entry of state power). The forest has been in a state of ecological balance involving numerous species since ancient times. However, in the modern field of science, the passive restoration of a community's self-governance ability could be unsustainable and unstable. To improve this situation, blockchain technology can first be used to improve the community management of a forest, such that the capabilities of the original local community can be improved; second, tourism promotion benefits both the community and the forest. When a community in a forest develops the tourism industry with the support of blockchain technology, the information and resources of all parties can be widely connected with the larger world, and this considerably increases success rates; finally, the traditional spiritual culture of a community, such as the culture of sharing, should be promoted. In addition to the skillful utilization of technology, culture can improve the traditional forest management ability of tribal communities who live in native forest areas in terms of their personality traits. Overall, we conclude that: against the evolution history of the over one hundred years, the adoption of new technology for forest management is inherently a creative innovation for the tribal community's entrepreneurial development.

Marvellous Christopher Etuk, Paschal Uzomah

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013-2014 was the most comprehensive analysis of anthropogenic climate change, its impacts, and potential responses. It concluded that climate change is “unequivocal” and human activities are the dominant cause. Avoidance of “dangerous” climate change will require sustained substantial reductions of emissions by mid-century and that net emissions decrease to zero before 2100. This paper describes, reviews and explains the place of tourism in AR5 and AR5’s relevance for tourism’s future, including impacts, adaptation, vulnerabilities, and mitigation. Tourism’s position in AR5 has strengthened, particularly with respect to the recognition of transboundary impacts, the sector’s contribution to climate change and its mitigation requirements. Major regional knowledge gaps persist. A lack of understanding of the integrated impacts of climate change and the effectiveness of adaptation strategies potentially hinders the development of resilient tourism operations and destinations. Uncertainties regarding tourist response to climate change impacts and mitigation policy impede predictions of tourism demand. The implications of different decarbonization pathways for the future of international tourism represent a key knowledge gap. The limited response of key tourism organizations to AR5 contributes to the risks climate change poses to the sector. Keywords: climate change; mitigation; adaptation; emissions; impacts; development Please note that the version provided here is the uncorrected proof version. For the authoritative version please go to the journal website: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09669582.2015.1062021#.VbMDLEV30os

María Pilar Peñarrubia Zaragoza, Moisés Simancas Cruz

No abstract is available for this record.

Aaron Tham, Μαριάννα Σιγάλα

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the disrupting usage and impacts of blockchains and cryptocurrencies and advocate their role as enablers of sustainable tourism development goals. Design/methodology/approach Literature on blockchains and cryptocurrencies is critically synthesized, debated and expanded to identify and discuss their implications toward sustainable tourism futures. Findings As a distributive digital ledger, blockchains have the potential to create a more inclusive tourism future to address debates around tourism as a vehicle for sustainable development that alludes to value accruing to only certain providers and consumers. Blockchains and their cryptocurrencies (as a financial transaction capability) elevate trust and relational capabilities in an expedited and holistic manner, democratize participation in economic systems and re-distribute power and economic relations amongst actors by influencing the way data (the currency of the digital economy and the lifeblood of tourism) is collected, stored, exchange, owned and traded for co-creating value. Research limitations/implications The paper is conceptual and speculative by identifying ways in which blockchain and cryptocurrencies can support sustainable tourism development goals. Directions for future research are provided for further elaborating and collecting primary evidence on whether the premise and applications of these technologies can deliver the acclaimed sustainable impacts. Originality/value The paper contributes to the emerging but controversial literature about the trajectories between technology and sustainability by critically debating on how blockchains, through cryptocurrency economies, can be positioned to facilitate sustainable tourism futures.

Bojan Radojević, Lazar Lazić, Marija Cimbaljević

The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed numerous, lasting adverse effects on the global tourism industry. At the same time, it exposed the competitive advantages that existing smart tourism infrastructure could provide for addressing urgent health issues and providing meaningful smart services. This paper initially provides examples of smart geospatial services based on COVID-19 pandemic-related data, such as algorithms for measuring social distancing through CCTV and proximity contract tracing protocols and applications. Indeed, smart destinations, as an evolutionary step of smart cities, very quickly became a practical and research framework in various other disciplines, from leisure and service-oriented to technical and geospatial domains. However, various technologies employed and interests of different stockholders create a constant need for rescaling of smart data to facilitate their usability in providing optimized smart tourism services. One of the pressing concerns is the functional alignment of geospatial data with tourism-related data. Thus, we aim to pinpoint the growing importance of smart geospatial services, by pointing to the main downturn of the current smart destination issue with geospatial data resolutions, and, by building upon the relations of the geospatial layer of data with the tourism-specific layer. To this end, we pinpoint two further research directions - reinvestigating spatial and temporal resolution as a core of data smartness and the need for contextual (tourism-oriented) scaling of smart technology. This could be of keen interest in post-pandemic tourism, where smart geospatial services will be of pressing concern, but also it still an issue to be resolved in further smart destination development.

Hung‐Che Wu, Ya-Yuan Chang

This paper aims to explore the structural relationship between experiential loyalty intentions and their six drivers – experiential motivation, experiential strength, experiential co-creation, experiential satisfaction, experiential trust and experiential commitment. In addition, it was hypothesized that how experiential motivation, experiential strength and experiential co-creation influences experiential loyalty intentions through the dimensions of experiential relationship quality. A conceptual model was developed and tested using the empirical data collected from 496 tourists who paid for goods and services in bitcoin in Brisbane Airport. Results will assist tourism management in developing and implementing market-orientated service strategies to increase experiential motivation, experiential strength, experiential co-creation, experiential satisfaction, experiential trust and experiential commitment in order to promote experiential loyalty intentions.

Nyane Ezekiel Macdonald Mofokeng, Thapeli Kenny Matima

The era of transformation powered by digitization, improvements in information and communication technology, machine learning, robotics and artificial intelligence is upon us. Today, we are able to solve complex problems with the aid of technology. That notwithstanding, animal populations globally are under threat, with the extinction of species taking place at a far accelerated pace than can be reversed, thus making wildlife conservation a critical issue of our time. Along with wildlife extinction currently underway, there remains a chronic financial shortage for wildlife conservation and the funding shortfall is expanding annually. This research contends that blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin can be utilized as a catalyst by the development of cryptowildlife nonfungible tokens (NFTs), which are provably scarce, unique and programmable digital wildlife collectible assets. These could be used to finance wildlife conservation as a supplementary source of revenue.

Michal Plaček, František Ochrana, Milan Jan Půček, Milan Křápek

Abstract This study tests whether decentralized leadership influences the efficiency of running selected cultural institutions, specifically museums in the Czech Republic. For the analysis, data from 2015 from 187 museums spread around the whole Czech Republic are used. The method for the evaluation of efficiency is data envelope analysis, and for identifying the influence of decentralized leadership, a regression analysis is used. Museums established by municipalities reach higher efficiency than museums established by regions and central government. The causes may be found in the ability to better estimate the local demand as well as in the rational behavior of municipalities that prefer a cost-minimization strategy. The benefits of decentralization cannot be seen only in the field of finance but also in reinforcing local traditions, trust and the effects of social capital that is generated by a strong regional cultural identity.